There are a dozen or more ways I could describe my feelings as I write this post, but I think “heartbroken” says it best. Kimbo Slice is dead, and I’m honest-to-God heartbroken to be delivering this news to you.

It may sound overly dramatic considering how tangential of a connection we shared with the guy, but to hear that the street fighting legend has passed away at just 42 years of age and just three months after his last appearance in the cage is so sudden, so bewildering, that it seems to hit with a greater weight than many of the unfortunate deaths we’ve reported on over the years.

(Unless he plans on actually using that sledgehammer, this is going to end poorly.)

Vince Lombardi was once famously quoted as saying that “It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up” that is the true measure of a man. Then again, he also died of stupid butthole cancer because he was too proud to get a proctoscopic exam, so what the f*ck does he know?

What we’re getting at is, there comes a time in everyone’s life where throwing in the towel doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re refusing (or unable) to get up. In the combat sports world especially, we’ve seen countless fighters place ego above all else and continue fighting well beyond the point that their bodies have told them to stop, and to what end? (More often than not, few wholly unnecessary concussions.

So if you were, say, a 38-year-old guy who nearly died from kidney failure while competing in your first MMA fight in 5 years, you’d probably hang up the 4 oz. gloves for good and thank your God for bringing you out of that coma you were in, right? Well, not if you’re Dada 5000 you wouldn’t!

You guys remember Bellator 149, right? The card with the one fight where the guy almost died and the other fight where one of the guys probably should have died, but instead one of them just got kneed in the nuts? It was truly one of the peak moments in our sport’s young history, but as they say, “nothing stays gold forever.”

Last week, we expressed the less-than-popular opinion that the booking of Kimbo Slice vs. Dada 5000 in the co-main event of Bellator 149 was perhaps the greatest matchmaking move in the promotion’s history. Our main argument was that, by booking such a clearly ridiculous, freakshow of a fight, Scott Coker was declaring once and for all that his promotion would not be attempting to compete with the UFC in terms of legitimate talent moving forward, but would instead be cashing in on the millennial driven, “so-bad-it’s-good” market that has begun to dominate the film and television industries in recent years.

With Slice vs. Dada now in the rearview mirror, we think it would be safe to say that we were right on the money.

If you guys haven’t been following the lead-up to tonight’s battle between Kimbo Slice and Dada 5000, hooooo boy have you been missing out.

For starters, the fight is being billed as a matchup to determine the “King of the Streets” despite the fact that, you know, it’s being contested in a cage. Secondly, the trash-talk between the two Miami-based brawlers has been next level bonkers, with Slice calling out Mr. 5000′s “baby nuts” and challenging him to a literal dick-measuring contest at the event’s press conference earlier this week. Oh, and had we mentioned that the fight has been so heavily bet on by “three or four” mystery men that it literally forced bookmakers to shift the odds for the fight? It has been an outstanding series of events, to put it mildly.

Anyways, CagePotato recently weighed in on what this bizarre matchup means for the future of Bellator over at Uproxx, and wouldn’t you know it, we think it’s the best move that the promotion could have possibly made. Head after the jump for a little preview of our assessment and make sure to tune into what will surely be a ludicrous matchup at Bellator 149 tonight.

This is, of course, a ludicrous question to anyone who saw the axe wound that Slice opened up over Shamrock’s eye, but then again, when has a piece of obvious evidence like that ever stopped us from crafting completely nonsensical conspiracy theories? Internet’s gotta Internet, amiright? You can count Joe Rogan among the Shammy-Slice truthers, so with that in mind, we decided mocked up a little survey to make sure all your voices are heard (as long as those voices conform to 1 of the 4 options we’ve allowed you to choose from).

Describing the atmosphere of a Bellator weigh-in — especially one headlined by the freakiest freakshow fight this side of Kinnikuman vs. Bob Sapp – is a difficult thing to do on paper. The energy is not quite as high as at the typical UFC event (well, a pay-per-view, anyway) and the loudest bouts of applause from the half-filled floor seating generally are oft reserved for the bevy of local fighters competing on the evening’s undercard. There is a distinct lack of frills at a Bellator event, which makes sense given that the promotion is now run under the guidance of Scott “No Nonsense” Coker.

At yesterday afternoon’s Bellator 138: Unfinished Business weigh-ins, which took place at the Scottrade Center in downtown St. Louis, the atmosphere was similarly underwhelming for a card that features the likes of Patricio Pitbull, Daniel Straus, and Michael Chandler to name a few. It was the featherweight champion who made the biggest impact, however, both on and off the scale. After missing weight on his first try, Pitbull frustratingly addressed the media about being the co-main event to a couple of fighters he felt “sorry for” before openly admitting that he would NOT be watching their fight. Talk about a company man, amiright?